and another asylum for the relief of destitute orphan girls shall be established at Milneburg, in this parish, under the names of the Milne Asylum for Destitute Orphan Boys and Milne Asylum for Destitute Orphan Girls, and that my executors shall cause the same to be duly incorporated by the proper authorities of this State; and to the said two contemplated institutions, and to the present institution of the Society for the Relief of Destitute Orphan Boys, in the city of Lafayette and parish of Jefferson, in this State, and to the Poydras Female Asylum in this city, I give and bequeath, in equal shares or interests of one-fourth to each, all my lands on the Bayou St. John and on the Lake Pontchartrain, including the unsold land of Milneburg.

I institute for my universal heirs and legatees, in equal shares or portions, the said four institutions; that is to say, the two intended institutions at Milneburg and the two asylums aforenamed in this city and in the city of Lafayette, to whom I give and bequeath the residue of all the property and estate, movable and immovable, I may possess at the time of my decease, to be equally divided and apportioned among them.

The largest of the benefactions made for education in Louisiana was the gift of John McDonogh. Very complex and curious were the terms of his will. A very large fortune was bestowed upon the cities of New Orleans and Baltimore, large portions of it as residuary legacies. It has been claimed that each of these cities should have realized several millions from this source alone for its public schools. The will, however, became the subject of an almost endless litigation, and, as is the wont in such cases, the greater portion of the fortune was consumed in the litigation. This whole subject is discussed by Judge William W. Howe in his Municipal History of New Orleans.* The conclusion he sets out is as follows:

The net result of the McDonogh will cases was to give the property to Baltimore and New Orleans, subject to sundry legacies and charges, which were paid and compromised. The extraordinary plan which the imagination of the testator had formed in his lonely hours of celibacy was never realized, but the object was to some practical extent attained. The net proceeds of the estate were divided between the cities, to be applied to educational purposes. The popular belief has been that the trust has not been well administered by New Orleans. This belief, however, is not well founded. The amount of the estate was much exaggerated; portions of it were depreciated in the lapse of time, and the expenses of defending it were heavy. The city received, in round numbers, about $750,000. With the proceeds she has erected and furnished eighteen schoolhouses. At an early period of the late war some of the assets were diverted for the purpose of fortifying the city, but were afterwards restored. The present value of the property, including the schoolhouses, is estimated at about $800,000 (p. 27).

The Asylum for the Relief of Destitute Orphan Boys, incorporated February 4, 1825, by James Workman, Beverly Chew, Jean Baptiste Labatut, Réné Lemonier, A. Perlée, William Christy, John Nicholson, Peter Laidlaw, and George W. Morgan, was the recipient of benefactions from both Milne and McDonogh. The assets of the Milne bequest comprise a large amount of real estate of little present value and about $3,000 of city bonds. †

The buildings and grounds now occupied by this asylum on St.

*Volume of the Johns Hopkins University Studies in History and Political Science.

Howe, ibid. p. 24,

Charles street were the gift of John McDonogh. A tablet to his memory has been erected in the hall of the main building.

Zenon Porché endowed Poydras College with $20,000. The legis lature in 1862 passed measures to secure this legacy.

William Silliman, vide p. 132.

Paul Tulane, vide p. 177.

CONCLUDING REMARKS.

It may seem to some that the writer of this monograph has been severe. He is aware of a somewhat different point of view in his treatment from that exhibited in the other reports of the series. It is therefore right to warn the reader of this difference, lest a comparison greatly to the disadvantage of Louisiana result. To whatever cause we may attribute it, the efforts made by the State for education when the indigent-beneficiary system obtained were dismal failOrleans College, the College of Louisiana, the College of Jefferson, Franklin College, the subsidized academies, where are they now?denominational colleges, private schools, or altogether deserted.

ures.

The free school system had a scant ten years' life, then four years' war, and ten years' reconstruction. Since then it has had only a few years to take root again.

The Louisiana State University has passed through the same crises, and had only two years to strike its roots before the outbreak of the war.

How many buildings the State has erected or assisted to erect for the purpose of higher education! Because of fires and the generous hand with which she has given property away she does not now own one stone upon another for this purpose.

At the end of such a monograph no reader could be more sensible of the omissions of the writer than himself. However many institutions he may have mentioned, he yet feels that the picture is incomplete. By his personal associations it happens that the writer knows that in the village of Minden, in north Louisiana, there existed quite a while before the war two colleges for women that gave substantially as good courses as the better high schools of to-day. In the same village there was at that time a boys' school, taught by two M. A.'s of Harvard College, one of them the father of the writer. But this village of Minden never had 1, 000 inhabitants. The schools there drew upon the surrounding country for their pupils. There was surely a great amount of enthusiasm for education in that little village. In a very different portion of the State the village of Jackson, of no larger proportions, enjoyed at least one and probably two girls' schools of a like character, besides the Centenary College. Who, then, shall say that the State did not possess a real enthusiasm for culture?

The outlook for the future is not unhopeful. The Tulane University is the product of the last few years. The Howard Memorial Library is a new and splendid agency for culture, at least in New Orleans, where the Fisk Free Library is also available, The former

contained 25,000 volumes in 1890, and has a fund to warrant its development. In the country new institutions are springing up, representing a standard of education pretty fairly comparable with good high schools in the larger cities. The larger institutions in the State should seek in some way to develop them into proper fitting schools for their own freshman classes.

The attempt has not been made to name all of these, or even some institutions of older standing. But the writer takes pleasure, while gratefully acknowledging the kindness of Mr. H. H. Hargrove, staff correspondent of the Picayune, in other matters, in being able to cite in conclusion the following words from a letter of his:

There has been a-wonderful growth in this cause since 1885, when the available funds [for the public schools] were $450,000, while they steadily increased in 1886, 1887, 1888, and 1889, until the last year, when they were $843,000, or nearly 90 per cent increase in four years, while population in the State only increased 20 per cent in ten years and wealth about 44 per cent in ten years. This interest is manifesting itself all over the State, and I believe it will result in over $1,000,000 this year; and the longer it is kept the greater will be the result.

I find the national department reports credit Louisiana with only nine colleges, while there are nearer thirty. Many of these have been built in the past two or three years, and possibly not noted.

To the end that none of them escape your attention, I hereby name as many as are familiar to me: Agricultural and Mechanical College, Baton Rouge; Tulane University and Soulé College, New Orleans; Jefferson College, St. James; Normal College, Natchitoches; Silliman Institute, Clinton; Centenary College, Jackson; Masonic Institute, Fort Jesup; Female College, Mansfield; Male and Female College, Keatchie; Thatcher Institute, Shreveport; Miss Nelson's Seminary, Shreveport: Louisiana Male and Female College, Shreveport; Minden Female College, Minden; Homer College, Homer; Gibsland Institute, Gibsland: Mount Lebanon University, Mount Lebanon; two colleges at Arcadia; Ruston College, Ruston: Simsboro Institute, Simsboro; Crowley College, Crowley; college, Lake Charles; college in interior of Calcasieu Parish; several in New Orleans; also several convents and brotherhood colleges belonging to the Catholics.

The institutes which have been held for two or three years by the normal faculty have done much toward this good work.

POSTSCRIPT WRITTEN IN 1898.

The manuscript of the History of Education in Louisiana was completed in the winter of 1890-91. It is impracticable to bring the description down to date. The writer has noted with pleasure a continued improvement in the two institutions for higher education in which the State is directly interested, viz. Tulane University and the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College. These institutions have an excellent and growing equipment. So far as the higher education is concerned, the outlook was never brighter.

The greatest obstacle to progress rests now, where it rested before, in the inadequacy of the preparatory schools to fit lads for college. The first educational scheme of the Territory of Orleans still furnishes a hint valuable for the future. Every parish in the State ought to be provided with at least one good high school, a school of such grade as to fit its most advanced students for the freshman class of the State University or Tulane. The relation of the University of Michigan to the high schools of that State furnishes a demonstration of what can be accomplished by consistently following a good general plan for State education, considered as a whole. May I not venture to call the attention of the educational authorities of my native State to the results that have been obtained in Michigan?

Chapter VIII.

TULANE UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA.*

Tulane University of Louisiana is an institution for the higher education of the white youth of Louisiana.

Tulane University is divided into the University Department of Philosophy and Science, College of Arts and Sciences, College of Technology, H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College for Young Women, Department of Law, and Department of Medicine.

The Tulane University of Louisiana came into existence as such by operation of law in July, 1884. But its origin was just half a century earlier. Its history is a record of feeble beginnings, of a long continued struggle, of growth, development, and expansion, and finally of the fullness of university life in the legitimate areas of educational effort.

THE MEDICAL COLLEGE OF LOUISIANA.

Its starting point was the organization of the "Medical College of Louisiana," in September, 1834. This institution was chartered April 2, 1835, by an act approved by Governor White, and in March, 1836, it issued the first degrees in medicine or science ever conferred in Louisiana, or the Southwest. In March, 1839, it issued its first degrees in pharmacy. The first faculty consisted of Thomas Hunt, dean and professor of physiology and pathological anatomy; Charles A. Luzenburg, surgery; J. Monro Mackie, theory and practice of medicine; Augustus H. Cenas, obstetrics and diseases of women and children; Ed. H. Darton, materia medica, therapeutics, and hygiene; Thomas R. Ingalls, chemistry; John H. Harrison, adjunct professor of anatomy, and Warren Stone, demonstrator of anatomy. A gradual reconstruction of the faculty occurred, and we find Dr. Warren Stone filling the chair of surgery from 1837 to 1872, when he was succeeded by Dr. T. G. Richardson, who had, however, entered the college as professor of anatomy in 1858. He was succeeded by Dr. Samuel Logan, and after his death in January, 1893, Dr. Albert B. Miles was elected to the chair of surgery. Dr. James Jones held different chairs in the college from 1836 to 1874; Dr. Harrison from 1834 to 1849; Dr. J. L. Riddell from 1836 to 1862, and Dr. Thomas Hunt from 1834 to 1867. Dr. Samuel M. Bemiss filled the chair of theory and practice *This article prepared by President William Preston Johnston. 1155-No. 1– -11

of medicine from 1866 to 1884; Dr. Samuel Logan filled the chair of anatomy from 1872 to 1885, and Dr. S. E. Chaillé, who was demonstrator of anatomy from 1857 to 1867 and lecturer on obstetrics in 1865-66, has filled the chair of physiology and pathological anatomy and hygiene from 1867 till the present time. Since 1853 the deans have been Prof. Thomas H. Hunt, 1853-1865; Dr. T. G. Richardson, 1865-1885, and Dr. S. E. Chaillé, since 1885. It would be useless to point out to the medical reader the weight and worth of these and other eminent names in the faculty.

The number of students in 1835 was 11; in 1836 there were 16, of whom 14 were graduated. The attendance increased steadily, and in 1846 reached 100, with 19 graduates; in 1856, 223, with 67 graduates. From unusual causes these figures rose in 1859 to 333 students and 97 graduates; in 1860, to 402 students and 113 graduates, and in 1861, to 404 students and 134 graduates. There were no sessions in 1863, 1864, and 1865. Before the war there were 4,119 students and 1,084 graduates. From 1866 to 1894 there were 6,786 students and 2,057 graduates. The total number of students from 1834 to 1894 was 10,905, and of graduates 3,141. A tabulated record of the professors and number of students by years will be found in exhibit marked “A.” The following sketch of the medical department, from the pen of the dean, Dr. S. E. Chaillé, contains the most important facts in its history:

66

It is the oldest medical college in the Southwest; it is, in age, the third south of the Potomac and Ohio rivers and the fifteenth in the United States. Having had more than 300 students during the session of 1887-88, it ranks, in the number of students, among the first 10 of the 93 "regular" medical colleges of the United States. Only 4 of the 14 older colleges exceed, in the number of students, the medical department of Tulane University, and it ranks, if age and the number of students and alumni be considered, as first in the Southwest and South and fifth in the United States.

The establishment and maintenance of the University of Louisiana, with its medical and other departments, first ordained by the State constitution of 1845, and similarly provided for by the subsequent constitutions of 1852, 1864, 1868, and 1879, was due in large measure to the influence of the professors of the Medical College of Louisiana. But the constitution of 1845 was not executed in this particular until February 16, 1847, when, by act No. 49, the Medical College of Louisiana was constituted the medical department of the University of Louisiana. This law was reenacted March 15, 1855, by act No. 320, and this law contains the legal provisions still most important to the medical department. Some of these provisions were repealed or modified by act No. 43, of July 5, 1884, the law which converted the University of Louisiana into the Tulane University of Louisiana, and also the law which, by vote of the people, April 17, 1888, was confirmed by an amendment to the constitution of 1879.

The first course of lectures was delivered in the statehouse; the second at No.

* The United States has had 158 regular medical colleges, but 65 of these have become extinct. The 93 colleges now existing had, in 1885-86, 3,243 graduates out of 10,339 students. Forty colleges had 50 students: 16, 50 to 100; 21, 100 to 200; 7, 200 to 300; 5, 300 to 400, and 4, 400 to 568, the maximum.-See An. Rep. U. S. Comr. of Education for 1885-86.